Preen
by wolfluvermh
Summary: Raffe is gone to patrol the surrounding forests in search of anyone else wishing to strike up a fight in the middle of the night, leaving Penryn with a slumbering Paige, an empty house, and two mussed angel wings. RAFFRYN FLUFF!


**Alright, so, they're my current OTP, and I knew I had to do something to help out this pitifully small fandom. Enjoy, and please review!**

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**Preen**

They look so bizarre there, awkwardly lain on the bed.

Raffe is off, checking the area around this desolate house in case it is not as abandoned as it seems, and most likely not to return for quite a while. If I know anything about him, it's that his warrior instincts forbid any sort of rash behavior. He'll screen all of the woodlands around this small cottage, until he deems the shadowed trees safe to harbor us until dawn.

However, before he'd taken off, Raffe had spent an abnormally long stretch of time in this room – I had assumed he was unpacking, finding a temporary resting place for his few belongings. But when he'd left, I'd noted the pack still tethered to his back. Curiosity had killed the cat, I suppose you could say, and I'd nosily investigated his room after tucking Paige beneath a spare blanket. The scene before me tugs my heart strings amorously.

His wings are splayed wide, snowy feathers vibrant, having only been hacked viciously off Beliel's back hours ago. Scarlet still stains the slits where they used to connect to Raffe's flesh, ruby droplets drying over the ivory plumage. Though they'd been carefully placed, resting on a soft nest of sheets and throw blankets, the glorious feathers are all in disarray and mayhem, a storm of chaos. The notch I'd chopped into the primaries is hardly different from the rest of the battered feathers.

I lean against the doorframe, my bruised muscles whimpering in complaint. Though once drooping sleepily over my eyes, my eyelids are blown wide and my brain is curious. A diaphanous plume of moonlight seeps through the drapes guarding a glass window, casting the light over his feathers. A strange, buoying emotion bloats my chest as I stare at those lonely angel wings, severed from the backs of not one but two bearers.

My footsteps creak in accordance with Paige's soft snores as I creep closer to the wings. I almost shy away from them, afraid to lay a hand upon the brilliant limbs; can they hold a memory like Pooky Bear? If I were to reach out and run my fingers through the feathers like silk, would Raffe later know of my actions? Would he be appalled? Would I become another filthy monkey, obsessed by the mystics of a greater being?

Despite my churn of emotions and the endless cycle of answerless questions, I tentatively lay a hand along the soft downy feathers across the top, over the band of taut muscle.

I almost expect Raffe's shadow to pass over the moon and bear down on me sarcastically. But when no scolding archangel arrives, I fan my fingers over the plumage. They tickle around each finger, like children waving a jovial hello.

I release a shaky breath, realizing that I've been holding it all this time. A knot in my chest unfurls. Studying the wings with all the kinks and gnarls of feathers, I do feel a bit reproachful of Raffe; with all he loves these wings, he probably should've done a better job of taking care of them. Fueled by a strange longing for the lovely curves and balances of feathers illustrated on Raffe's glorious wings, I straighten a single feather that had somehow wormed all the way around.

Tickled by the rightness of the feather now in its correct position, my fingers gently smooth out another feather until it lies flat with the current of the wing.

Another feather is straightened against its will.

And another.

And another.

Before I know it, I'm preening through Raffe's wings like a mama angel – I'm not utterly certain how I know what feathers lie where in the collage of overlapping primaries and secondaries and a whole lot of other 'daries, but as soon as the feather sits straight, I'm certain of how it fits.

Once, it occurs to me that I'm operating over the dead, lifeless flesh of my hated enemies, but the thought is sucked up before I allow myself to really ponder over that disgusting topic.

The worst challenge is most likely the feathers that are bent or dented. I don't have a clue how to fix them, so I straighten them out between the two palms of my hands and hope for the best. They don't look _awful_, but I've seen better specimen.

Though I don't keep track of the time, I'm distantly aware of the moon creeping beyond its throne in the belly of the glass window, vaguely certain that evening crawls into midnight. But my thoughts are occupied by the constant preening and cleaning of Raffe's feathers.

At long last, I reach a problem I can't fix; an entire wing is completed, true, and each of its elegant white feathers are perfectly sculpted to the frozen muscle in that wing, but there is more than one wing. And almost all of the primaries on his right wing are utterly twisted and contorted, something that I don't know how to handle.

Awkwardly, I swivel them in their sockets, trying to find a way for them to fit. After all of my fluid instinctive knowledge, it abruptly deserting me is odd. My fingers pause over the feathers, my mind grappling for an idea of how to position the final plumage.

In the vacancy of the solemn night, a sudden warm precense from behind shocks me, sending my heart throbbing erratically in my veins. I jump backwards, into a large, dense body that resists the force of my surprise with ease. Two arms reach for the wings, wrapping me against a solid chest, and two broad hands rest over my own. The caramel pallor of the man's skin is too familiar, the muscles now sheltering me against the chill of the night too welcoming.

"They go like this," husks Raffe, his lips at my ear. Nervous jitters envelope my stomach as he move my hands for me, every finger lain precisely over mine.

I could sink into the ground. I've made it pretty damn clear that I hate angels; it's hypocritical to go around preening their feathers for them. But then again, this is Raffe. Actually, no, it's still a sin, this is _Raffe_. Good God in Heaven knows how long he's been standing there, too. The lack of the sarcastic edge in Raffe's voice spooks me a little, and turns me on.

"Like this?" I breathe, cocking my head slightly upwards to better reach his ears. A low, heated pool settles in the pit of my stomach, its intensity only increased by each flex of Raffe's muscles.

"Yes," he murmurs, lips brushing my temple. Our fingers in unison flatten the last feather into position. "Exactly like that."

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**So, yeah. Raffryn fluff. **

**If you like this, please don't be a ghost reader and review! I'll do a series, if you'd like!**

**Ciao,**

**~wolfluvermh**


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